Finding Customers for Your Consulting Business

Topics to be covered

  • What you will learn
    • Use word of mouth
    • Give away free samples of your work
    • Consider volunteering
    • Recognize that not everyone will find you by email
    • Turn all of these efforts into a regular work habit
    • Addendum: Keeping your existing customers happy

Identify this movie

Use word of mouth

  • Birth announcement
  • Current customers
  • Staying in touch

Birth announcement

  • “I’m embarking on a new career move, starting a small statistical consulting business, P.Mean Consulting. I’m so excited. Wish me luck.” Send to
    • Family,
    • Friends,
    • Colleagues from your former job
    • Former professors from your degree program
  • Use email and/or social media
  • Send only once

Thank you note

  • “Thanks for involving me in this interesting project. If you have anything similar in the future, I’d love to continue our collaboration.”
    • Send one week/one month after final payment
    • Send only once

Stay in regular touch

  • No direct solicitation
    • “I heard that your youngest is leaving for college. What’s it like being an empty nester?”
    • “I bet your whole town is celebrating with two straight Super Bowl victories.”
    • “I saw this NYTimes article about long COVID, and it reminded me of your work.”
  • Not too often, every six months?

Business cards

  • Hand out at every event
    • “Good to chat with you. Here’s a card. Call me or email me if you want to talk some more.”
  • Write something on the back
    • “Ethics code for research”
  • Take their cards and follow-up
    • Business card = one (but only one) free spam
    • “I just wanted to say again how much I enjoyed your talk”

Email ticklers

  • Signature file
    • “New career! P.Mean Consulting”
    • “P.Mean Consulting. Now in our second year of business”
    • Short and sweet
  • Configure your email name
    • Not “Steve Simon”, use “Steve Simon, P.Mean Consulting”

Break #1

  • What you have learned
    • Use word of mouth
  • What’s coming next
    • Give away free samples of your work
  • Any questions?
  • What have you done in this area that you found helpful?

Identify this movie

Give away free samples of your work

  • Writing
    • Books
    • Newsletters
    • Blog posts
  • Talks
    • For statisticians
    • For non-statisticians
    • Let others promote your work

Write a book

  • Not easy and not for everyone
  • Much greater impact than journal articles
  • Self publishing option?

Publish a newsletter

  • Use an established vendor
    • Formal unsubscribe mechanism
  • Publish regularly
    • Monthly or less often

Create a blog

  • Similar to newsletters
    • Indexed by search engines
    • More impact than journal article
  • Publish regularly, but not too often
    • Fresh content
    • Recommendations
  • Stay away from politics

Give talks

  • Client audiences
  • Statistical audiences
    • Other statisticians will often send you referrals.

Let others promote your work, 1 of 4

Let others promote your work, 2 of 4

…He currently runs a small consulting business, P.Mean Consulting, as a sole proprietorship…

Let others promote your work, 3 of 4

…He is president of the Kansas City R Users Group and is looking for speakers for future Zoom meetings…

Let others promote your work, 4 of 4

His current research interests include using Bayesian models to forecast patient accrual in clinical trials and examining data sharing practices in peer-reviewed articles.

Break #2

  • What you have learned
    • Give away free samples of your work
  • What’s coming next
    • Consider volunteering
  • Any questions?
  • What have you done in this area that you found helpful?

Identify this movie

Volunteering

  • Similar to giving away free samples
    • Officer in an organization
    • Committee work
    • Pro bono work
  • Strive for high visibility work
  • Don’t volunteer unless you can do a good job

Officer in an organization

  • Client-rich organizations
  • ASA offices
    • Related positions
  • Committee work

Pro bono work

  • Statistics Without Borders
    • Steve Pierson, Gary Shapiro, Jim Cochran, Fritz Scheuren
  • Stats4Good
    • David Corliss
  • Informal efforts
    • Find a cause you believe in
  • Never offer free consulting to a potential paying client

Strive for high visibility work

  • Some volunteer work is largely anonymous
    • Peer review
    • Grants committees

Don’t voluneer unless you can do a good job

  • Avoid efforts that you hate
  • Avoid efforts you don’t have time for

Break #3

  • What you have learned
    • Consider volunteering
  • What’s coming next
    • Recognize that not everyone will find you by email
  • Any questions?
  • What have you done in this area that you found helpful?

Identify this movie

Don’t adopt all of the ideas I have proposed here, but if you do adopt an idea, make a regular commitment. Don’t do a flurry of activity. Pace yourself to avoid burnout. At the same time, carve out time, maybe a few hours every week where you focus exclusively on efforts to improve your visibility and to get your name out in front of people who can become your customers.

It’s important to identify a primary effort. Don’t spread yourself too thinly. Pick something. Let’s say it is your newsletter. If that’s the case, make sure that you get a plug in for your newsletter on those occasions when you find yourself giving a talk. Use social media mostly to publicize your newsletter. Include a subscription link in the signature file of your emails.

Your goal is to try to funnel all your secondary efforts toward that primary effort.

Be sure to keep the time commitments manageable. Don’t volunteer so much that you don’t have time to do work for pay. Certainly no more than 25% of your time. A target of 10% might be better for some people. :::

Break #5

  • What you have learned
    • Turn all of these efforts into a regular work habit
  • What’s coming next
    • Addendum: Keeping your existing customers happy
  • Any questions?
  • What have you in this area that you found helpful?

Identify this movie

Keeping your existing customers

  • Three things to be careful about
    • Time
    • Money
    • Quality

Keeping your existing customers

  • Regular billing
  • Honesty about your limitations
  • Make them less dependent on you

Summary

  • What you have learned
    • Use word of mouth
    • Give away free samples of your work
    • Consider volunteering
    • Recognize that not everyone will find you by email
    • Turn all of these efforts into a regular work habit
    • Addendum: Keeping your existing customers happy
  • Any questions?
  • What have you in this area that you found helpful?